Berlin Masterclass January 2018 in the very smart Studio Byron Knutson. What a fantastic week.

Another terrific day of training at the Wales International Academy of Voice in Cardiff. The standard of singing is truly excellent here and it's a such privilege to work with their students. There are some notes if you click on the photos.

Day long masterclass in acting and audition skills at the Wales International Academy of Voice with their excellent and very dedicated young singers. Hugely enjoyable day.

Character, Imagination and Your Operatic Performance - a joint workshop combining singing and acting skills with the wonderful Alison Wells, accompanied by the excellent Nigel Foster. In London in June.

Really terrific afternoon taking my workshop up to Manchester for the first time.

Fantastic afternoon with the Masters students of the Trinity Laban Conservatoire. In the Practical session we brought Der Holle Rache to life with great results. Very enjoyable day with a great group of students.

Case StudiesMezzo Soprano AA

Mezzo Soprano AA had been to a prestigious UK music conservatoire. She had a big voice, knew she sang well, and was involved in a local and successful opera company. In the meantime, she was also teaching music. Over time she felt her attention to her singing was starting to drift and came to me to re-energise her singing and concentrate on what really mattered, moving ahead with her operatic career. She knew something was missing but she wasn't exactly sure what that 'something' was.She attended my workshop and was very enthusiastic about what she had learnt and subsequently came to me for private coaching. Very quickly I realised that she was in a musical world of her own. Thinking about how to make every sound. I could see the cogs and wheels whirring round as her attention was entirely on herself and how to sing. She needed to move beyond herself and to grasp the concept that a singer is first and foremost a professional communicator. She was unconsciously hampering her own ability to communicate. Over several sessions, we went through numerous exercises working diligently to get her mind off herself and onto communicating the story, the character, the relationships in her arias. And she had a major breakthrough. She discovered that by communicating the dramatic context of the music, her voice opened up markedly. It was as if once she understood what made a character want to sing, and in reaching out to the audience expressing what the aria was about, her voice grew larger in order to communicate. Over the period of her lessons, she learnt how to apply this approach to every aria and to the opera she was working on, she grew in confidence and it was clear a rather big door had opened for her and she had not just walked through it, she practically sprinted through it. She then started looking for more opportunities within the UK and outside it and won a full scholarship to a summer course in europe teaching singers how to break into their opera system. This proved extremely successful for her, she received a great deal of encouragement and has now moved to Europe to launch her singing career.Update: This AfO grad is now singing professionally in Germany. Well done!!

Soprano X

Soprano X was having difficulties getting into an opera training programme and came to me for help. Outside of the audition room she was getting very positive feedback and her teacher had fully expected her to get a choice of training places. However, this was not turning out to be the case. The feedback she had received from previous auditions was that she sang well but was not nearly communicative nor was she expressive enough. Watching her during the lesson, I could see there was so much more to this soprano than she was letting on about herself. She had an ironic sense of humour, she was charming, she was a bit feisty, but she was doing just about everything she could to not show these qualities to me. Clearly she was leaving these important personal characteristics outside the audition room instead of showcasing them in her audition both in her singing and in the interview. I wanted her to understand that these qualities were some of her most valuable strengths. We talked at length about how important it is for her auditiors to see her express herself, to be that feisty and funny soprano. She needed to give her auditors a much better idea of who she is as a person. She left her lesson with a very different idea of what was required in an audition, what she should expect and what would be expected of her. She then attended one of my workshops and sang in the practical session and did very well. A few months later I got an excited message from her that she got a recall for her course and wanted to work on her recall preparation. Bearing in mind that her previous feedback had been that she was a bit too buttoned down, we found a piece that was very outspoken and rebellious for her to perform at the recall. I wanted her to show her auditors that yes she could really let rip and express herself. Within a few weeks she let me know she had been offered a place on what was in fact a very difficult course to get into and I was and am absolutely delighted for her.

Workshops with CompaniesFantastic afternoon with the Chorus of the Cork Operatic Society. We worked on Va Pensiero from Nabucco in the Practical Session. "The Opera Chorus Coaching Workshop we held hosted by Norman Cooley was a great success. Our chorus members were given the opportunity to explore the potential that their own individual characters could bring to an ensemble. The presentation showing examples of different choruses and the various ways to move together to create a powerful picture was very useful and working together as a group on a familiar piece was thoroughly effective. We look forward to working with Norman again." - Cork Operatic Society

Opera Foundry Workshop given over two successive Wednesdays in Woking. Really enjoyed working with this company. Very receptive and engaged group. We worked on arias from Tosca, Billy Budd and an aria and scene from La Boheme in the Practical session which I really enjoyed.

"I just wanted to say a big thanks for coming over to work with Opera Foundry. As a recently formed, innovative opera company, we are committed to developing and supporting our talented singers, by providing performance opportunities and experiences through which they can develop their singing and acting skills. Your tailor made workshops were pitched very well and allowed useful participation and discussion for all singers alongside the practicals. A great deal of ground was covered in the sessions and we aim to work on a number of the important points discussed over the next few weeks during our rehearsals. Thank you for sharing your vast acting knowledge with us and making the sessions very relevant and interesting to our work as singers and performers. We look forward to working with you again!" - Elaine Way, Soprano and Artistic Director, Opera Foundry

Photos of previous workshops at the Royal Academy of Music, The Wigmore Hall, the National Opera Studio and St. Gabriel's Halls in Pimlico.

"An opera singer is a professional communicator. The better the communication, the finer the artist."

Telling the story of an opera requires teamwork. A singer in a scene is not performing in a vacuum and contact between singers is absolutely crucial.

Is the standard of your acting in opera entirely dependent on the ability of your director? Would you like to deliver a strong acting performance even if your director isn't all that great?